Like Looking Through Glass
by okaynextcrisis
Summary: Post-Daybreak AU. Chapter 4: Bill has a bad dream.
1. Chapter 1

_Laura._

Someone was calling her name.

_Laura. Wake up._

Wake up? But she was so tired. So very tired. Couldn't she just stay here? She liked it here. She wasn't sure where she was, exactly, but here everything was muted, and soft, and deliciously silent. It was like coming home, as a child again on Caprica, drifting along the sandy bottom of the lake she and her sisters had spent hours exploring. There were no decisions to make here, no wars to fight, no people to save. Not like back in the real world, where everything was loud, and painful, where even _breathing_ had become an agony—

_Everything's going to be okay, Laura._

But it already _was _okay. She wished she could tell the voice that. As long as she stayed here, in this place, she would be warm, and she would be _safe_, and nothing would ever hurt her again…

_Laura. Come back to me._

Another voice this time, gruff and impatient.

_She can't hear you, Bill._

Bill.

_That _hurt. Guilt snaked its way down her spine. Bill wouldn't want her to be here, she knew. He'd want her with to be with him, no matter how difficult it was, no matter how much it hurt—

_She can hear me. _

It was Bill's voice, Laura realized. He had to be close—but where?

_I know she can._

Laura squinted into the murky darkness. If she could just reach a little farther...she could almost touch him…

Laura Roslin opened her eyes.

"Laura!"

Bill was bent over her, his bright blue eyes full of relief, his hand tightly gripping hers.

"There you are," he whispered, his free hand coming up to brush her face. "I've been waiting for you."

She tried to speak, but could only cough.

"Take it easy," Bill said, his rough face creased with worry.

"She's fine," a gravelly voice said from beyond Bill's shoulder. _Cottle. _She could smell the acrid smoke from here. "Her throat's just scratched from the ventilator."

Laura caught her breath. "What's happening?" she rasped. Her throat felt like it had been sandpapered.

"You're going to be all right," Bill tried to soothe her. "You don't have to worry about anything. You just need to rest—"

"She's been flat on her back for three days," Cottle retorted. "Any more rest and she'll get bed sores."

Bill tossed a glare over his shoulder.

"_You're _the one who needs rest," Cottle continued, unperturbed. "Carrying on like a teenager, hovering over her, watching her sleep—how the woman gets any peace with you, I'll never know."

Laura almost laughed, at the disgruntled look on Bill's face, but broke into a coughing fit instead. "Three days?" she managed, coughing into her hand, the one not still held firmly in Bill's.

Cottle snorted. "Now that he's no longer the Admiral, he has nothing to do but moon over you," he informed her. "My sincerest condolences."

No longer the Admiral? But what—

Laura tried to raise her head—"Easy," Bill pleaded—and glimpsed white fabric tented above her, instead of the gray bulkheads she'd grown so used to. This wasn't sickbay. This wasn't even Galactica. Where—

The memories came back, flooding in so fast she felt dizzy. Hera. The mission. The Opera House.

_Earth._

Laura took deep, steadying breaths, suddenly dizzy.

But if this was Earth…wasn't she supposed to be dead? Cottle had given her two days, only two days, and that was _before _the mission…now, three days after that…

Come to think of it, why wasn't she in any pain? It had been months since she'd felt this good in her own body, weeks since she'd been able to breathe without feeling a sharp weight pressing down on her chest.

Laura turned her gaze back to Bill, who was watching her carefully, his expression unreadable. "What happened?" she croaked, a note of steeliness in her thin voice.

Cottle cleared his throat loudly.

Bill squeezed her fingers. "You're going to be all right," he said, smoothing circles on the back of her hand with his thumb. "That's all that matters right now."

Laura pulled herself up a little straighter in the bed and fixed Bill, still gripping her hand, with a glare that had withered lesser men.

"You might as well tell her," Cottle advised, moving past Bill and out of Laura's line of sight. "She's not going to let up. And if she's going to be pissed at anyone, it's going to be you, not me."

Bill grunted irritably, but didn't argue the point.

Laura's gaze didn't waver from Bill's face. "Tell me," she commanded.

Bill shook his head, a smile tugging at his lips. "It's just so good to have you telling me what to do again."

Laura rolled her eyes. "Bill—"

"Your cancer's gone," he said simply.

_No. This wasn't possible. Not again. Not now._

Reflexively, Laura tried to pull her hand away.

"After we brought you off of Galactica," Bill continued gently, tightening his grip on her hand, "you were in pretty bad shape. For hours, you were in and out of consciousness—and then Athena and Helo came to me."

_A dying leader shall lead the people to salvation. _

"They wanted to do it, Laura. After everything that's happened, after Hera, after the visions—they wanted to give you this."

_A leader who suffered a wasting disease…_

"Athena's pregnant," Bill told her softly.

…_and would not live to enter the new land._

"They asked…if we wanted their help."

Laura was already shaking her head. "Bill," she whispered. "You didn't—"

He bent low over her hand, pressing his lips to her knuckles. "Cottle took a blood sample from the fetus, and injected it into you…and your cancer disappeared. Just like before."

"Just like before," Laura echoed dully. "And no one wanted to ask _me_ what I thought about all this?"

"Well, you were unconscious at the time," Bill said reasonably. "And as your husband, the decision fell to me."

"As my _what_?" Laura demanded.

Bill lifted her hand, and Laura glimpsed a gold band loosely encircling one of her fingers. Bill's hand, she saw, was now bare.

Laura closed her eyes.

"It was already yours, Laura," he said, his thumb gently brushing a tear away from her cheek. "I married you months ago. You just didn't notice."

Laura opened her eyes, willing the tears back. "It won't last," she told him, as gently as she could. "The cancer will come back. A few months, a few _weeks _from now, maybe—"

"You don't know that," Bill retorted gently. "The cancer might be gone for good this time."

She shook her head, unable to even entertain the suggestion. "It's not. I _know_ it's not."

"And if it's not…" Bill's hand cupped her face. "Then I'll take the few months or the few weeks, and consider it a gift from your gods."

"Bill…" She was so tired. "I can't let you watch me die all over again. It'll kill _you_."

Bill looked away. A silence stretched between them. She was right, and they both knew it. Her eyes slipped shut. She was so tired…

She was startled out of her half-sleep by Bill slipping his arms around her body and lifting her out of the bed. "What are you doing?" she asked, her voice muffled, her face pressed into the warmth of his chest.

She felt, rather than saw, Bill carry her out of the tent. His laughter rumbled in his chest, close to her ear. "It's too late for you to decide not to trust me _now_, Laura," he told her.

It was a fair point, Laura figured. Already, she felt like she could breathe better, out of that bed and that hospital tent, with Bill's arms wrapped securely around her. Laura let her eyes drift shut, lulled by the beating of his heart against her ear.

She woke up as Bill was settling them down onto the ground, her body still held tight in his arms, her head nestled against his chest.

"Laura." Bill's voice was close to her ear. "Wake up. I want you to see something."

Laura opened her eyes—and gasped.

The sun was setting, spreading rich crimsons across the sky as the sun spread liquid gold over the horizon. The clouds had turned to copper, on fire with the last of the sun's light. Laura hadn't seen a sunset in months and months, not since that hell on New Caprica, with its weak sun and biting cold. But this…even the Caprican sunsets of her childhood paled in comparison with this.

Laura had never seen a sunset like this.

"Bill," she whispered, reverently.

He pulled her closer, kissing the top of her scarf-covered head. He did not speak. He didn't have to. He knew what this sight meant to her, just as she knew what it meant to him.

Together, they watched the last of the sun's rays slip over the horizon, until the light was gone, and darkness covered them. Tears fell from Laura's eyes and soaked into the rough fabric of Bill's shirt.

"I laid out the plans for the cabin today," he said at last. "While you were asleep. Just as soon as you're a little stronger, we'll go and pick out the perfect spot."

Laura swallowed, her throat aching. She wanted it so very badly, and yet…

"I don't know how much time we have," Bill continued, his voice soft. "But we found Earth, Laura. Twice, now. We made peace with the Cylons. Maybe we'll manage one more miracle."

Laura looked up, watching the sky darken overhead. The stars were coming out, she saw. Not the stars they had seen together on Kobol, the star pattern they had searched the galaxy for, believing, hoping, that those stars would lead them home.

These were different stars. This was a different Earth. And yet…they were home.

It had been so very long in coming.

Laura reached out, running her fingers through the grass beneath them, letting the sweet smell of it fill her lungs.

Earth was a graveyard. She was supposed to be dead. And yet here was Earth, beautiful and fragrant and full of life. And here she was, alive and awake and lying beneath the stars.

Suddenly giddy, laughter bubbling up from within her, Laura leaned up and pressed her lips to Bill's, drawing the kiss out achingly slowly, luxuriating in the feel of his mouth on hers and her body against his. There was no need to rush. Not anymore. They had time.

They broke apart, and she settled back onto the ground, stretching out, wanting to feel the life beneath her with every inch of her body.

"Tomorrow," Laura decided, nestling into Bill's shoulder and turning her gaze back up to the stars. "We'll find our home tomorrow."


	2. Chapter 2

_I still don't own Bill and Laura. Sniffle._

* * *

**Chapter Two**

"You sure you're up to this?" Bill asked, glancing up from the raptor's controls, where he was running through one last pre-flight check.

Laura smiled, her eyes still closed against the bright mid-morning sun. "Yes," she said, her voice coming out clogged from sleep. She must have drifted off again. Bill had tucked her into her seat beside him in the raptor, wrapped up in a blanket, all nice and warm in the sunlight, and even two days after her unlikely cure, she was still so _tired_…

She coughed, clearing her throat.

There was a pause in the mechanical sounds coming from Bill's side of the raptor.

If there was one thing Laura Roslin knew, it was how to tell when Bill was worried, particularly when he didn't want anyone to know it.

"Laura, there's no rush—" he began.

"There is _absolutely_ a rush," Laura corrected. "You, sir, promised me that cabin."

"And you're going to get it," Bill promised, his voice low. "But another few days, here in the camp, with Cottle—"

Finally opening her eyes, Laura stretched out her hand to meet Bill's. "William Adama," she teased. "Are you afraid to be alone with me?"

Bill's lip twitched. "You _are_ a crafty and treacherous woman," he pointed out. "Not to mention that the last time I was thoroughly _alone with you_, there was an armed uprising…"

"Mmm," Laura agreed. "Maybe that'll teach you to skip out on me before breakfast."

Bill lifted her hand and pressed her knuckles to his lips. "Never again," he said, his voice soft. "You're going to have me around so much, you're gonna get sick of me."

Laura tilted her head. "Well, I don't know about _that_," she said, drawing the words out, pretending to consider.

"Thank you," Bill said dryly, releasing her hand and gently placing it back in her lap.

"Not until my cabin's built, anyway," Laura went on, her tone innocent. "I can probably put up with you while there's still heavy lifting to be done."

Bill grinned. "I'll have to work slowly, then."

Back on Galactica, living among his beloved books and family photographs, standing beside him in CIC, sleeping next to him at night, Laura had thought she'd known Bill Adama about as well as it was possible to know another human being. But seeing his face now, on this planet—_Earth_, Laura reminded herself wryly—lit with real sunlight, smile wide and easy…it was almost like meeting him for the first time.

She was so grateful to be alive to see it.

Blinking away her tears—if Bill caught her crying now, they'd never leave–she gave him a bright smile instead. "So do you remember how to fly this thing, or what?"

* * *

The sun was high over the horizon now as they flew over the ocean, the expanse of azure waves glittering in the sunlight, the sheer beauty taking Laura's breath away. Flocks of pink birds frolicked in the shallows. She couldn't take her eyes off them. There was so much _life _on this world…

"It's a rich continent," Bill was saying. "More wildlife than all the Twelve Colonies put together." He glanced over at her. "You okay?"

She wondered how long she would have to live, how safe she would have to be and how healthy she would have to stay, for Bill to forget these months of terror, for the worry for her that gripped his heart to ease.

More than anything, Laura wanted to give him that.

She gave him a reassuring smile. "Just looking for a quiet little place for that cabin," she answered.

He nodded, the sudden tension in his face relaxing. "Maybe a garden," he mused. "I don't have much of a green thumb, so I hope that you do…"

Laura laughed. "Bill, we kept the human race alive," she said. "I think we can manage a few plants."

"I don't know about that," Bill remarked. "You can't airlock plants, you know."

"Or _throw them in the brig_," Laura said pointedly.

"If the plants don't plan a mutiny, I won't have to," Bill said, his smile widening.

"Maybe if you'd just done what the plants said to begin with, they wouldn't have had to," Laura said, her frosty tone belied by her teasing smile.

"Well, maybe if the plants hadn't stolen a raider—" Bill began.

Laura gasped. "Bill!"

His face went white. "What's wrong?" he demanded, his hand instantly reaching for hers. "Laura, are you—"

Shaking her head, impatient, she pointed out the view screen ahead of them. "Bill, _look_."

A lake, nestled into the mountains, sunlight glinting off the surface, the water perfectly, purely, clear. And gently sloping up from the lake, there was a grassy hillside, overlooking a valley, green and vibrant with life. Laura already wanted to stand on that spot with Bill, and watch the procession of life on this world, this dream that they had fought so hard to make a reality.

The hilltop was just flat enough to build upon.

_In the mountains there's this little lake that goes down into a stream_, she'd told him on New Caprica, her cheeks flushed and her dreams suddenly so close. _The water is so clear it's like looking through glass. I'm thinking of building a cabin._

It was nothing like she'd imagined.

It was everything she'd imagined.

"Right there," Bill whispered.

Laura squeezed his hand. "Right there," she whispered back.

* * *

"Bill, you have to let me do _something_," Laura repeated, as Bill unpacked the tent from the raptor's survival gear.

"Laura, I'm perfectly capable of putting a tent up myself," Bill replied calmly. "You need the rest."

Laura bit back a sharp rejoinder, silently counting to twenty. It would take time, she reminded herself. Time for her to regain her strength, and time for Bill to learn to trust in it again. It hadn't even been forty-eight hours yet, after all. Her hands had lost their terrifying trembling, but, much as she might try to hide it, she was still weak, still exhausted. Bill had had to help her out of the raptor and guide her to this spot on the hill, with her leaning heavily on his arm, and still, by the time he'd gotten her settled against this tree and into a nest of blankets, she was spent. "Cured," it turned out, was one thing; "better" was quite another.

And that was just how she _felt_. Laura didn't have a mirror, but she was sure she wasn't the most comforting sight at the moment, with her head covered in a headscarf and her painfully thin body swimming in borrowed fatigues. No wonder Bill was treating her like she might break.

But Laura had no intention of letting him _wallow_ in it.

He reached down in front of her to remove a stray stone from his path and she pulled his face down to hers, rising up on her knees to press her lips against his.

"_Rest_?" she whispered teasingly when they finally broke apart.

This was new, this being alone together. No Quorum screaming for her attention, no CIC calling for his; no more stolen moments between briefings and Diloxan treatments and the inevitable crisis of the day. From now on, Laura realized, it would be just the two of them, days and nights and every instant in between. It was intoxicating. She kissed him again, just because she could.

Breaking away, Bill kissed her forehead. "Tent," he said firmly, trying and failing to suppress the grin that threatened to break out on his face. "I want to get you all settled in and have a fire going before it gets dark."

Laura wrapped her arms around his neck. "Can't we do all that tomorrow?" she mock-pouted. She would sleep on the ground for the rest of her life if it meant she could keep seeing him smile like this.

Bill shook his head, amused. "Haven't you ever been camping?"

"I was the Secretary of Education of the Twelve Colonies," Laura said with great dignity. "My idea of roughing it was a hotel with only one pool."

Bill barked out a laugh. "Forgive me," he said, matching her formal tone. "I'll have to roll out the red carpet and sound the trumpets for you later."

Laura shuddered. "Once was bad enough. Would _you_ have wanted all those people watching you try to climb down a ladder in heels and a skirt?"

"How was I supposed to know what to do with the frakkin' President?" Bill grumbled, kissing the top of her head. "I'd never met one in my life."

Laura giggled. "_I_ was the first president you ever met?" she asked. "Gods help you."

"I cannot imagine," Bill deadpanned, "that meeting a hundred presidents would have prepared me for you."

Laura smiled broadly. "Thank you," she teased.

Bill's eyes sparkled, and before he could make a rejoinder, Laura couldn't help but kiss him again. How many hours, how many _days_, had they wasted doing anything but this?

"_Tent_," Bill repeated, mock-sternly, before releasing her to return to his work.

Laura wondered how long it would take for him to realize that he wasn't the Admiral anymore, that the fate of thousands no longer rested on what he did or didn't do. She had had months to learn to let go of being president; Bill had had no such luxury. She would have to be patient with him, that was all.

But that didn't mean she couldn't enjoy herself.

"Have you done this before?" she called out, as Bill's head disappeared into the tent, half of it upright, the other half collapsing around his head.

"Of course I've done this before," Bill grunted, his voice muffled from inside the tent. "It's just been a while since basic, that's all."

"You haven't done this since basic training?" Laura repeated gleefully. She couldn't remember the last time she'd had this much fun.

"What happened to 'We saved the human race; we can do anything'?" Bill groused, as their tent, to Laura's eyes, finally began to look more like a tent and less like a very large blanket.

"I would think you, of all people, would appreciate a good rouse-the-troops speech—" Laura began.

There was a thud, a muttered "Frak," and then Bill was crawling out of a tent that now actually looked like a tent, a triumphant expression on his face.

"Impressed?" he teased, his hands planted on his hips, his cheeks flushed from the wind.

Laura swallowed past a sudden lump in her throat. "Always," she said softly.

"I know it doesn't look like much, yet," he said, his tone turning serious. "But the tent is just until we can start work on your cabin, and your cabin is going to be beautiful. I promise."

_Earth. We're going to find it. Together._

She had believed that. She had believed that she and Bill were meant to find Earth, meant to lead humanity to its new home. But this…in her wildest, most selfish dreams, Laura had never dared to allow herself to hope for this much.

She cleared her throat. "This is already beautiful," she said.

Still grinning, Bill scooped her up in his arms.

"Bill, I'm perfectly capable—" she began.

"I know," Bill interrupted gently. "Indulge me."

If Laura had a plan for the rest of her life, that would be it.

She pressed a kiss to his cheek and, wrapping her arms around his neck, let him carry her through the entrance of their tent.

"Are you going to get all sentimental on me now, Admiral?" Laura whispered into his ear.

Bill grinned widely and dropped her, giggling, onto their sleeping bag. "Never crossed my mind, Madame President," he assured her.

* * *

Later, after dusk had fallen, after they had crawled out of their tent and heated up rations from the raptor over a fire, Bill and Laura curled up together on a blanket spread out on their hill and watched the sun go down.

"Tomorrow we'll go down to the stream," Bill said quietly. "I took a look down there earlier. I think there'll be some good fishing. We can stretch out the rations a little longer that way, while we figure out what's good to eat around here."

"You're not going to insist I stay behind and _rest_?" Laura asked dryly, lifting her eyebrows.

Bill chuckled and pulled her closer. "I haven't been fishing in forty years," he informed her, his voice a deep rumble against her ear. "I wouldn't dream of denying you the spectacle."

A lump rose in her throat. _Tomorrow_. That was what they had now, Laura realized. In the morning, this sun would come up, and she and Bill would still be there, beneath it. They would make breakfast. They would go fishing. They would crawl into their tent at night. And the next morning, they could do it all again.

She realized that her tears were dampening Bill's shirt, and laughed quietly at herself.

Maybe Bill wasn't the only one who needed time.

"Laura?" he prompted gently. "You okay?"

She took a deep breath and counted to twenty.

She rested her hand on his chest, listening for the steady _thump-thump-thump _of his heart.

"We're okay," she replied. "I promise."


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3**

* * *

"Good morning," Bill whispered into her ear.

These days, even before she opened her eyes, Laura was smiling.

"Morning," she yawned, stretching lazily in his arms, feeling the length of his body nestled against hers. Early morning light flooded their tent, casting a warm golden glow on the thick green military-issue canvas around them. Laura sighed in contentment and turned in Bill's arms, burying her face in his chest. Mornings were one of her favorite times of day now.

They'd been on this planet—Laura still wasn't sure she'd ever quite think of it as _Earth_—for three weeks now, twenty-one nights of falling asleep together in this tent and twenty-one mornings of waking up, still here, still together. It wasn't nearly as long as they had run after the attacks, or even as long as they had settled on New Caprica, but it was enough time that Laura could feel both herself and Bill begin to relax here, begin to trust that this planet, too, would not be ripped away from them. For the first few mornings, they'd blinked awake in the unfamiliar sunlight, hearts pounding, disoriented, until they placed themselves here in this tent, on this hill, on this planet. Now, even though she knew she hadn't come close to learning all of its secrets, this planet was no longer a stranger; Laura was coming to think of it as a friend.

"Time to get up," Bill said softly, rousing her from her daydream.

Laura shook her head against his chest, tightening her grip on him and burrowing further under the blanket. It wasn't that she minded getting up—not for a second, not anymore—but she _loved_ knowing that they didn't have to, that they could waste the entire day in this sleeping bag if they wanted to.

Sometimes they did.

Even with her eyes shut, she could feel Bill's smile. "Fine," he said, giving in easily. "We don't have to get up. Of course, we _were_ going to start laying out the posts for the cabin today, but if you'd _rather_ live in this tent for the rest of your life—"

"_Up_," Laura commanded, already sitting up and reaching for her glasses. From beneath her, she could hear Bill chuckling softly.

Laura was already halfway into her clothes.

"Just for that, _you're_ making breakfast," she informed him.

Bill laughed harder.

* * *

After breakfast, which Bill _did_ make—fish that they'd caught from their lake, cooked over a fire pit they'd built from stones they'd collected, along with nuts and berries they'd gathered the day before—they headed over to the site they'd picked out for their cabin, just at the summit of the hill.

Two days ago, they'd stood there at sunset, watching the fading light turn the valley beneath them to indigo. They'd spent the day sawing logs down to size, then hauled them up to the site, just as the light was beginning to go.

Well, Laura amended, to be perfectly fair, _Bill_ had done most of the heavy lifting. She was feeling good these days, better than she would have believed, in fact, not even a month ago—but she still tired easily, still had yet to gain back all of her strength. She wasn't worried. She remembered this weariness from the first cure, back on Galactica. It would just take time.

And they had plenty of time.

"We ought to be able to get the posts planted for the perimeter of the cabin before we lose the light," Bill mused, peering at the plans through his glasses.

Laura leaned over his shoulder to look, even though she'd had the blueprint memorized weeks ago. She loved these plans: every line, every curve, every wrinkle in the paper.

"Then come the walls, and the floor, and the ceiling…" Bill continued.

"You mean, actually building the thing?" Laura teased.

He snorted. "Well, it's not going to build itself," he said, tucking the plans, carefully folded, back into the pocket of his jacket. "So we might as well get started."

It didn't take them long to get into a rhythm, with Laura digging a hole for each post, the two of them hoisting each carefully cut plank upright, and Bill hammering each post into place. In fact, if Laura was surprised by anything—and after making peace with the Cylons, finding Earth, and being cured of her cancer, nothing much came as a shock to her anymore—it was how quickly she and Bill continued to adapt to this place. She would have thought that the transition—from life on the ship to life on the ground, from FTL drives and running water to fire pits and footpaths, from commanding a fleet to gathering berries—would have been rougher, on both of them. Instead, they seemed to slip smoothly into this new life, the way they slid into the lake here, the heat of the air easing them into the warmth of the water.

She wondered, sometimes, if they would ever get sick of this planet, this life, and long for what they'd had, and given up…or if they'd fought and suffered and lost enough getting here to never want to go back.

Looking at Bill now, at the sun warming his olive skin and the energy sparkling in his blue eyes, Laura wasn't worried.

"It's a beautiful day," she said aloud.

Bill grinned, pausing to wipe the sweat off his brow with the back of his hand. "You say that every day."

"It's _true_ every day," Laura argued.

Bill's smile softened. "That it is."

He gave the post a final push into the earth, giving it an approving slap with his hand.

Laura giggled.

Bill lifted his eyebrows.

"You just…" She shouldn't tease him, really. She loved him for this, loved him for his hand-drawn plans and his carefully cut logs and his honest enthusiasm for every part of this project. She'd wondered, sometimes, what they would have been like together if they'd met back on the colonies, what their life would have been like, if they could have been this happy.

Somehow, she doubted it.

No one could ever possibly be this happy.

"You're good at this," she said instead.

"When I was a kid I spent summers on my uncle's farm," Bill said. "I've built a shed or two in my day."

Another giggle slipped free; Laura tried to turn it into a cough. From the look on his face, Laura could tell that Bill wasn't fooled.

"You worked on a farm," she repeated. "You. On…_a farm_?"

One corner of Bill's mouth lifted. "On a farm," he informed her. "With _chickens_."

This time, Laura didn't even try to hide her glee. "_Please_ tell me you fed them."

Bill grinned. "On occasion."

Laura propped her chin up in her hand. "Tell me about it."

Bill shook his head, amused. "About feeding chickens?"

That wasn't quite it, no.

Laura shrugged, trying to find the words. "I forget sometimes how much about you I don't know," she said at last. "I think I know you so well, and—"

"You do," Bill argued, his voice low, his eyes concerned.

Laura reached for his hand, squeezing his fingers to let him know that it was all right, she wasn't upset. "Tell me something about you," she prompted. "Something that I don't know."

Bill leaned back against the post. "Well, my father was a lawyer…but you know that."

"I do."

"My mother was an accountant," Bill continued. "Did you know that?"

Laura nodded. "It was in the dossier that Billy prepared for me on my first day on Galactica."

Bill smiled. "How come I didn't get a dossier on you?"

"You wouldn't have read it, anyway," Laura reminded him.

"A report on the naïve little schoolteacher who was coming to decommission my battlestar and ruin my life?" Bill teased. "Not a chance."

Laura stretched out on the grass, letting her head come to rest in Bill's lap. "You haven't told me anything I don't know yet," she reminded him.

Bill's fingers played absently with the reddish fuzz that was just beginning to grow back in on her scalp. "Let's see…I was an only child, did you know that?"

"No, but it shows," Laura said dryly.

From this angle, she couldn't see his face, but she knew he was smiling. "And let me guess…you were the oldest," he teased. "That's how you got so good at telling people what to do."

Someday, Laura knew, she would tell Bill about her sisters, about her father. But not now. Not today.

"That's when I learned that other people _needed_ to be told what to do," she corrected.

Bill snorted. "And you grew up in Caprica City, right?"

Laura nodded against his lap. "That's probably why I'm so much more sophisticated than you."

"Hey," Bill said, pretending to be offended. "I'll have you know _lots_ of girls were into hot Viper jocks."

"Farm boys are _so_ popular," Laura teased.

Bill's hand was still moving on her head, and Laura closed her eyes, losing herself in the sensation. She was startled when Bill spoke again.

"When I was ten," he said, "my father was always trying to get me to read more. He was a law professor by then, and he was always reading, writing—law books, legal briefs, case reviews, that kind of thing. And I…well, I didn't want to be like him. I wanted to be like my uncles—going places, _doing_ things, not sitting around all day in a study…"

Laura smiled, but gently.

"Anyway, one day, a friend of my father's brings a book to the house. A _mystery_. And he asks my father if he's ever read it."

Laura tilted her head up to see the smile on his face.

"And my father starts going on about how much he _hates_ mysteries. They're trashy, and badly written, and you always know who did it by the end anyway…"

Laura shook her head in mock despair. "_Now_ they tell me."

Bill's smile grew wry. "So that summer, I went to the library, and I checked out every mystery they had."

Laura reached up, touching his cheek. "I'm glad you did."

His smile turned soft. "Me, too."

Laura let her fingers drift, across the bridge of his nose, down the craggy plane of his cheek.

"And what about ten-year-old Laura Roslin?" Bill asked, looking down at her.

Laura shook her head. "Sometimes I think we're not so different," she said. "And sometimes…"

"Sometimes?" Bill prompted, his voice gentle.

"I wonder what she'd think of me," Laura mused. "I wonder…well, I wonder what I would tell her. What I wish someone had told me."

"And what would you tell her?" Bill asked, his voice quiet.

Laura hesitated. "I suppose…"

_Don't let your sisters get in the car. Stop Billy from going to Cloud 9. Tell Elosha to watch her step. Steal the election. Get that frakkin' breast exam. _

"I think I'd tell her that everything will be okay," she said at last. "But I'm not sure she'd believe me. I mean, I'm not sure _I'd_ believe me…"

"You _are_ kind of stubborn," Bill informed her.

Laura snorted. "What would you tell ten-year-old Bill?"

He grinned. "That's easy," he said, bringing her hand to his lips. "Be nicer to the schoolteacher."


	4. Chapter 4

_A big plate of brownies to adama-roslinlove, for both the idea for this chapter and the continuing enthusiasm for this story._

* * *

**Chapter Four**

* * *

_Laura was cold._

_He'd only left her for a few hours, just long enough to split another batch of logs for their cabin, and then haul them up to the site._

_Usually, Laura came with him, and they worked together. But today, she'd wanted to stay; there were weeds coming up in the garden, she'd said, and she wanted to pull them before they grew too tall, before the roots had a chance to thicken and take hold. He wanted to keep working on their cabin; after four months on this planet, and nearly that long at construction, they were finally starting to see something emerge from their labor, something that looked like it could be a home someday._

_He couldn't wait for Laura to live there._

_He'd offered to stay with her, anyway, to put off the work until tomorrow._

_She'd laughed at him, gently, and asked him how he intended to miss her if he never let her out of his sight._

_He said it would only be for a few hours._

_She said she would be fine._

_But when he came back to their tent that night and crawled into their sleeping bag beside her…it wasn't Laura anymore._

_She was cold._

_His shaking fingers fumbled for her wrist, as he prayed desperately to find a pulse, to see any signs of life left in her body._

_There was nothing._

_She was dead._

_He was alone._

"Are you planning to stay in bed all day?"

Bill Adama's eyes flew open.

Laura was kneeling beside him, wrapped in his bathrobe, short wisps of red hair clinging damply to her scalp. She must have sneaked out of their sleeping bag and gone for an early-morning swim in the lake.

Without thinking, he pulled her down on top of him, droplets of water from her hair dripping down his face, her chest pressed to his, her steady heartbeat a comforting counterpoint to the pounding of his own.

"Good morning to you, too," Laura said, her dry voice muffled.

He kissed the top of her head, tasting lake water. "Morning," he whispered, tightening his arms around her.

"You okay?" Laura murmured against his neck.

Bill closed his eyes. He wouldn't tell her. What would be the point? It had just been a dream, after all, only a stupid frakking dream…

But Laura put such stock in dreams.

"Just happy to see you," he managed.

"You see me every day," Laura pointed out.

_And it makes me happy every day. _

"How was the lake?" he said instead.

Laura propped herself up on his chest and pressed a finger against his lips. "Don't start."

"Don't start what?" Bill asked, honestly confused.

"You don't mean, 'How was the lake,'" Laura informed him. "You _mean_, 'It makes me uncomfortable when you go swimming alone because I'm afraid you'll drown or be eaten by crocodiles.'"

Bill couldn't remember phrasing it quite that way, but he couldn't deny that the sentiment sounded familiar.

"And it was lovely," Laura said, flashing him a smile. "Thanks for asking."

He was never letting her out of his sight ever again.

"Maybe I'll get up and go with you tomorrow morning, then," he offered.

"You hate early-morning swimming," Laura reminded him. "You said if you wanted to immerse yourself in tepid water that smelled funny you would have gone to the pool back on Galactica."

_That_, Bill could remember saying.

"And it's high time I got over it," Bill replied. "So don't leave without me tomorrow, okay?"

Laura smoothed the creases in his forehead with her thumb. "Are you sure you're okay?" she asked, her voice quiet.

"Positive," Bill said, more strongly than he felt.

From the arch to Laura's eyebrows, he knew she didn't believe him. "Are you ready to head out, then?" she asked. "We were going to cut some more logs, and work in the garden…"

"I thought we could stay here today," Bill said, trying to keep his tone casual, not panicked. "I can't remember the last time we read together."

"It was when we finished _Searider Falcon_," Laura reminded him, a line appearing between her brows. "I _know_ you remember that."

Of course he remembered.

They'd read the ending on the last rainy day here, Bill reading aloud, his head nestled in Laura's lap, her fingers moving through his hair, beginning to grow out of its military cut. When he'd reached the very last sentence, a droplet had appeared on the page, and he'd looked up to see that Laura was crying.

He'd cried, then, too.

Neither of them had ever thought they'd make it this far.

"Maybe we should read it over again," he said.

The crease between Laura's brows deepened. "What happened to 'A day that goes by without us working on the cabin is another day until we move in'?"

He could remember saying that, too,

"One day won't make a difference," he said instead.

Slowly, Laura pulled away from him to sit up. "Are you going to tell me what's wrong, or are you going to keep making me guess?"

He could not tell Laura Roslin, former President of the Twelve Colonies, Dying Leader, and one-time prophet, that he was scared of a bad dream.

"I have all day," Laura reminded him.

He wasn't sure how he was going to get out of telling her, either.

"It's nothing," he said, pulling himself up so that they were level. "Let's start in the garden today."

Laura Roslin, former President of the Twelve Colonies, Dying Leader, and one-time prophet, slid her glasses onto her face, looked at him over the rims, and waited.

He'd seen her use this stare on terrorists, Quorum delegates, and unruly four-year-olds alike. But Bill Adama was not so easily intimidated. He waited, too.

Laura didn't move, her commanding gaze in no way diminished by the fact that she was sitting cross-legged in a bathrobe with wet hair.

Actually, Bill was fairly certain she'd given _him_ this look, too, the day they'd met, the day of the attacks…sitting across the table from him, a pencil playing between her fingers, a superior smirk on her face.

_We need to get the hell out of here and we need start having babies._

A rueful smile tugged at his lips. She'd been right then, too.

"It's nothing," he said again. "A dream, that was all."

Laura's gaze didn't waver. "What kind of dream?"

He really, _really_ didn't want to tell Laura about his dream. "Not your kind of dream," he answered. "Just the regular kind of dream. The kind that doesn't mean anything."

Laura's face softened. "How did I die this time, Bill?"

"That's not—" Bill cleared his throat. "It was just a dream," he repeated.

Laura reached out to brush his arm. "Of course it was," she agreed.

Except what if it wasn't.

_His hand fumbling for hers, her body cold and silent in their tent. _

What if he lost her now, after all they'd been through? What if her cancer came back? What if her cancer was back _now_, and they just didn't know it? What if she was dying right now?

"Bill?"

And it wasn't just her cancer. There were a thousand things that could kill Laura on this planet. What if she drowned in that lake she loved? What if she were caught in a lightning storm? What if their cabin caught fire? What if—

Laura moved closer, cupped his face in her hands. "Bill. I'm right here."

And she was, he knew that, but what if she wasn't tomorrow? What if he lost her the next day, or the next week, or the next month?

He could not live in her cabin alone.

A deep shudder ran through him.

He couldn't imagine anything worse than that.

He could picture it so clearly: a lonely old man on a hill, building a home for a dead woman, talking to a grave—

Then Laura leaned forward and pressed her lips against his, and he could feel the pressure on his lungs easing, the weight lifting off his chest.

If he could just hold onto this moment, protect it, live in it forever…

Too soon, she pulled back, her hands still holding his face.

"I'm right here," she repeated. "I'm fine. You don't have to worry about me anymore."

His hands covered hers. "Who's worried?"

Her lips quirked. "I am," she informed him, releasing him to settle back down onto his chest. "I'm worried I've been working you too hard, if you're willing to take any pathetic excuse for a day off."

"It's true," he said, pulling her closer. "You're a slave driver."

Laura sighed contentedly. "I've been called worse."

"I know," Bill reminded her. "I've called you worse myself."

Her laughter was rich, soothing, and he closed his eyes, letting himself get lost in in the sound of her voice and the feel of her body in his arms, trying to forget the images that still lurked in his mind.

It was only a dream, he told himself, bringing one hand up, running his fingers through the short tufts of hair at the back of her neck. Laura was fine. She was safe. They were together.

Some days, _that_ seemed like a dream, their life together here too lovely, too perfect, to be true.

He was sharing a tent with Laura Roslin on Earth.

They were building a cabin.

_I don't think I've ever felt truly at home until these last few months, here with you._

He'd known what she meant then, as he sat by her bed in sickbay, forcing a smile for her, trying to ignore the beeping of the machines that counted down her heartbeats. Having her in his quarters, her bare feet on the rug, her glasses strewn haphazardly on his desk, her bare head beside his on the pillow every night…it had been the best time of his life, even as the fleet fell apart around them, even as he was losing everything, even as she was fading from the world, from life, from him.

This, now, is better.

Laura shifted in his grip, her head settling onto his shoulder, her hand coming up to smooth his chest. "You know," she said, "I'm not sure I remember the end of _Love and Bullets_."

He knew that she did. They'd finished it together, one night, in what was by then their quarters in all but name, with him sitting beside her as she lay curled up in what used to be his rack, what was now her rack, what would soon be their rack.

He kissed her forehead. "You know, I'm not sure I remember, either."

Of course he did.

He reached for the box that held their books, safeguarded from rain and dirt and dust, but always within reach, and found that particular dog-eared volume, carefully nestled among the rest.

"Maybe you should start at the beginning," Laura suggested, her hand still tracing soothing circles on his chest, above his heart.

"Maybe we should," Bill agreed, settling his glasses onto his nose and cracking open the spine.

"We have time," Laura reminded him.

His smile turned crooked.

Yes. They did.

He had to remember that.

"It started the way it always did, with a body," he read aloud. "This one was in the river, and I could tell that she had once been beautiful, but this bullet and a fast current had taken that away from her."

He remembered the first time he'd read those words to her, as an apology, an encouragement, a confession, back when everything in their world was dying and he couldn't face the fact that she was, too, when every moment seemed to be slipping away from him so fast, when the thought that she might not know what she meant to him was as terrifying as the thought that she might.

"All that we are, or that we think we are, all that we are certain of, is taken away from us," he continued.

That was exactly what he was afraid of.

Laura pressed a kiss to his neck, and he knew that she knew it, too.

"When you've worked the streets and seen what I've seen, you become more and more convinced of it every day."

Laura reached a hand up, pulled the blanket down over both of them.

"Caprica City had been my teacher, my mistress. From the moment I open my eyes, she is in my blood, like cheap wine," he said, his eyes no longer on the page, on the words he knew by heart, but on Laura, curled up on top of him. "Bitter and sweet, tinged with regret. I'll never be free of her, nor do I want to be, for she is what I am—"

Gently, Laura took the book from his hands, and propped herself up on one elbow so that she could see him…and he could see her.

"—all that is, should always be," she finished, a half-smile on her lips, her pale green eyes deadly serious.

Without taking his eyes off hers, he removed his glasses, removed hers, set them, side by side, on top of _Love and Bullets._

Maybe rereading this book could wait another day, too.


End file.
